Heh. I didn’t realize until yesterday that I was off today. How stupid of me… but at least I felt justified in leaving the laundry undone one more day. Not that I’ve done it yet or anything. But I did catch up on a few days worth of newspapers.
The only interesting thing aside from the latest embarassment from Bush trying to honor MLK day was a big, front page article in the Sunday paper about – drum roll please – blogging! It’s a “phenomen” now. I had to laugh because I think the “phenomen” is at least two or three years old. But that’s Buffalo for ya!
Some experts claim that blogging will grow tremendously this year and in years to come, as people learn how to do it – and how much fun it can be.
Uh huh. Look out… here comes the masses from Buffalo.
I also clipped coupons. Yes, I’m a coupon user. I do let them pile up for a bit before clipping, and I do sometimes forget to take them to the store, but when I actually manage to combine the weekly Wegmans specials with coupons I’ve clipped I can save a significant amount.
The only problem with coupons is that they entice you to buy shit you normally wouldn’t. I have to be very careful about this and make sure to only clip what we’d actually use. Mel does a lot of cooking and we rarely buy any pre-packaged or prepared stuff. We tend to buy most of our stuff from the “edges” of the store – not venturing into the middle aisles.
Coupons have gotten sneaky now anyway. It used to be $1 off for one item, a good enticement to try something in my opionion. Now it’s $1 off two items. Clearly, you can only use one of those coupons for something you use regularly. What if you never had it, bought two and decided you hated it? Now I see manufacturers are upping the ante with $1 off three items. That’s just a bad deal and a ridiculous ploy to get you to spend more money.
As for all the pre-packaged crap… Who eats “Hot Pockets”, cereal and milk bars, and those crustless, round PB&J sandwiches? I’m sorry, but every one of those products scream LAZY. Except in limited circumstances I tend to think pre-shredded cheese is lazy. But, how about the Sargento cheese cut into cute shapes? It’s just stupid and I can’t believe people pay for that. Even if I had kids I wouldn’t buy any of it.
I know there’s lots more stupid products than the few I just mentioned… so tell me what you think is dumb.
it’s no wonder this country is so overweight. you’re encouraged to buy pre-packaged food but take a look at the calories or the levels of sodium in so-called "diet" food. unbelievable. and how about the cereal bars they have now…are people really so busy they can’t sit down for two minutes and pour cereal/milk into a bowl? the bars are full of sugar and crap…don’t eat them!!!!!
my personal campaign is to get wegmans to review their pricing. why is it that all the "bad" stuff is so cheap but the healthy stuff is expensive? i want them to drop the price of fruit, veg, wholemeal bread (the non-bleached, no bromate, full of grains version), fish and increase the prices on all the frozen pizza, cookies, cakes and chips! then maybe people would eat good food and not be fooled into thinking that lo-carb versions of products are good for them. there needs to be some major education about what makes a healthy diet so that people don’t go on these fad diets that might cause u to lose weight in the short term but lead to more serious problems longer term cos they don’t get a good balanced diet. this is one of my pet peeves…in case u hadn’t realised…could go on about it for ages…..
i was at the chiro a few weeks ago reading one of his magazines while i was waiting. i was killing myself laughing as there was an ad in their for pre-cut cheese…not grated….cut to the perfect size for sandwiches. honestly!!! what’s wrong with using a knife??
anyway…my motto…if it’s manmade, don’t buy it!!!!!!!!
ps. i do buy kraft cheese singles sometimes cos that’s the only cheese that doesn’t make me come out in a sweat….i think there’s some enzyme or something that they leave out.
I don’t think I’d ever be in so much of a hurry that I couldn’t grate or slice cheese.
My grocery (HEB) has more and more of the pre-peeled and sliced fruit every time I go there. How hard can it be to peel an orange?
We have a great deli at our grocery store, and get all our cheese and deli meats there. Talk about the perfect size for sandwiches…
I do eat the PB&J sandwiches that you mentioned, GB — only because the school that The Princess teaches at will throw them out. They’re great when I’m on the go at work and don’t have time to eat my lunch. We certainly wouldn’t buy them, though. 🙂
I hadn’t thought about it, but you put it perfectly — "shop around the edges" at your grocery store and avoid all the processed crap! That’s exactly what we do!
prepare for tons of posts about how much snow there is!